Toronto, ON — ACTRA is pleased today’s federal budget fulfils the government’s election commitments to (re)invest in Canada’s cultural organizations and hope this marks the beginning of a new relationship with Canada’s cultural communities.

“After years of neglect, Canadians have a government that’s willing to invest in cultural creation once more. Today’s budget makes smart investments that will promote Canadian culture and create good jobs for performers,” said ACTRA National President Ferne Downey.

“We’re eager to work with the government to create effective policy that will grow Canada’s cultural industries,” said Stephen Waddell, ACTRA National Executive Director. “We still have a lot of work to do but today’s budget is a positive first step with the government to build Canada’s creative industries.”

Today’s budget commits new funding for Canada’s cultural institutions including the CBC, National Film Board and Telefilm. The new funding for the CBC matches commitments made by the Liberals during the election campaign, while funding increases for Telefilm and the National Film Board fall short of the Liberal campaign commitments.

Re-investment in Canada’s cultural institutions is one of three main strategic priorities ACTRA outlined in its 2016 pre-Budget submission. ACTRA will continue working with the government on these issues:

Reinvesting in cultural institutions to tell Canadian stories: ensure the government not only delivers on election commitments to increase funding from cultural institutions that have suffered from cutbacks – the CBC, National Film Board and Telefilm Canada – but linking that funding to new Canadian production;

Reviewing broadcast regulation to protect consumers and support Canadian content creation: in a changing media landscape, Canada needs to ensure Internet broadcasters, like Netflix, pay their fair share when it comes to supporting Canadian culture;

Protecting performers’ intellectual property rights: ensure audiovisual artists are granted the same protections as audio artists when the Copyright Act goes under review in 2017.

ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) is the national union of professional performers working in the English-language recorded media in Canada. ACTRA represents the interests of 22,000 members across the country – the foundation of Canada’s highly-acclaimed professional performing community.